


No One After Us

by LadyLaguna



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 20:13:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7068352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLaguna/pseuds/LadyLaguna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Figaro Castle is above the sand again. Edgar and Celes share a bottle of something old. Implied Locke/Celes and Edgar/Locke sprinkled in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One After Us

**Author's Note:**

> Written for wildmansters@tumblr! Thanks so much for your friendship and inspiration!

In these days, there are lists in every town. Travelers passing through are always looking for loved ones. They record their names, the names of their beloved, and where they hope to go next. Needless to say, some never make it to the next destination. Some lose the strength to continue, or don’t have the strength to start.

They all know that they are fortunate to be alive. Celes seems to have taken the worst beating out of all of them. Her clothes hang loose, sword belt notched inches smaller than before.

“She came a long way alone,” Sabin says, the sentence terribly loaded. Edgar need not ask for elaboration. The look in Sabin’s eyes says it all, and they can read one another like books.

And they don’t ask. Unlike the bedraggled travelers with their endless lists, Edgar and Celes do not quiz one another on who they’ve seen. The answer is obvious. It has been a year, and then some. Edgar’s best friend, Celes’s would-be lover, a man who once proclaimed he “could find a flea on a Rhinox’s ass,” has not found either of them.

They’re lucky to be alive.

A few nights after the castle's recovery, he finds her on one of the balconies facing east. The cold night air blows through platinum blonde and she closes her eyes. He suddenly finds himself regretting that the crimson haze in the sky has obscured the moon. She reminds him of how she looked onstage, in that dress, her hair tied up in blue, like her piercing gaze--

“If you look hard enough, you can see the lights of South Figaro.”

Of course, she knows he’s there. In a few steps he’s just behind her, looking out, over her shoulder. There’s nothing out here, no life, no sound, save the unrelenting call of the wind. But far off, over the mountain range, the slightest halo of light blooms.

“I’m proud of them.”

She glances over her shoulder, and her lips quirk slightly upward. “They’re like your children, aren’t they?”

Laughing a little, he leans on the railing beside her. “That sounds terribly patronizing. Is that what Gestahl called his subjects?”

“No,” Celes says, sobering. “We were always soldiers.”

Edgar fears he’s ruined the moment, but Celes is merely lost in her own thoughts. She looks at him for a moment and reaches out. Nails dust over the light beard on his face.

“Oh!” he cries, rubbing his jaw. “I should probably shave.”

“It’s a good look on you, _Gerad_ ,” she teases.

Embarrassed, he looks away. “Celes… I feel I should say… I’m… well… for a year, I’ve lived this lie, and…”

“No need to explain,” she interrupts, eyes returning to the horizon. Feelings? Of course, no need to indulge in those bothersome things. Edgar’s watched she and Locke dance around one another like nervous cats for long enough to know that feelings aren’t her forte. And what of he? Hiding behind an assumed name while the world dies around him, just as he hid behind his playboy persona while the Empire tore everything asunder. It keeps him up at night, which is why he’s wandering the halls of this castle in the early morning, just as she is.

Holding up a bottle of liquor with dust obscuring the label, he says, “Look what I found.“ Celes looks as commanded, eyes immutable, and he continues, “I don’t know what it is, and it’s probably older than my grandfather’s reign. You want some?”

“I always wondered what people saved their booze for,” Celes says, reaching for the bottle. She studies it. “I mean, what’s the point of having it, if you’ll never enjoy it?”

“The End of the World,” Edgar announces, long arms thrown wide. “There’ll be no one else to drink it. What a lucky day for us, hmm? Pop the cork, m’lady.”

She does, sloshes it around, and takes a big gulp. Hissing, she hands it back. “I can see the back of my skull,” she gasps.

“Perfect,” Edgar cries, taking a slightly less manly drink. It burns all the way down, and he feels more alive somehow.

They share a few more drinks, uttering relieved praise and trying to surmise what lurks in the bottle. Some sort of brandy?

“Do you really believe that?” Celes asks, quite suddenly.

“What?”

“That it’s all over? There will be no one after us?”

An answer doesn’t immediately come to his lips. Why did he bother coming to find this castle? His people? Did he really believe there was still a future for them? He’d heard a rumor and followed it. He had an obligation to his people. To his father. To himself.

“I would like to try to reach Kohlingen,” Celes says. Her eyes are no longer trained on the horizon.

“Of course.”

Speaking of obligation.

Only he and Celes know about that girl, that wax doll, that anchor keeping Locke tethered to his past. It was a heavy burden to bear at times. That secret. Would she still be there, waiting for him?

Their eyes lock. Celes is softer now, than she was. The world has torn down her walls. Or maybe she took them down herself, letting a few select people through. She could be in that tower with Kefka right now, if she wanted. She could have betrayed them all to save her own skin. Kefka would have killed her later, when he bored of her. Or she may have somehow overpowered him. Regardless, she chose this. Chose the Returners. Chose suffering, just as Edgar did.

“Lucky for us, you aren’t the Ice Queen I initially made you out to be,” Edgar observes.

Pursing her lips, she replies, “Fortunately for your people, you’re not the playboy they initially made you out to be in the reconnaissance files…”

“Do you find that arousing, General Chere?” he rumbles, the line dripping from his lips by instinct.

He expects, at best, a smart-assed retort. At worst, a broken nose. What he doesn’t expect is for her to murmur, “A little.”

Edgar isn’t sure who kissed who first. All he knows is that her lips are bruising and cold and full, her body hard. But not hard enough, or full enough. He can feel her hipbones under his long fingers.

They stumble through the dark to find the first unoccupied bedroom, which is easy, because half of the castle’s occupants are dead. Between gasping kisses they drink, exchanging few words besides gentle direction.

It’s been a several months since he’s touched a woman. She was a lonely girl in Nikeah whom he fucked because she had a warm bed and he was sick of sleeping on the ground. Before that was the maid in Vector, who rolled over after the deed and sobbed because she was sure he was going to be executed. There was no passion in either of these encounters, no joy.

This, with Celes, is simultaneously more and less. It’s comfortable. Quiet. She’s not the love of his life, but he loves her right now, and will love her still tomorrow, as a stalwart companion. He will love her until the tomorrows run out.

At some point the bottle is drained, discarded, barely appreciated for all the effort that went into it. The coverlet on the bed is dusty, and Edgar removes it with one long sweep of his arms. Celes crawls onto the sheets, lifting her tunic over her head. Even though she’s much too thin, she’s still ravishing, and he buries his face in her chest with a satisfied rumble. There’s something tied, high up, around her bicep. A scrap of blue, with gold embroidery. He knows what it is by the mere feel of it, against his skin, against his lips. He doesn’t ask how she came across it, and she doesn’t tell. And it stays just where it is, a silent witness and reminder.

She’s gracious enough to let him unlace her breeches and pull them away. She strips him with the efficiency of one cleaning a weapon, dragging sharp nails over the expanse of his chest. They kiss again and he pushes her back against the pillows, body rolling slow and hard against her own. His lips, hot and fast, drag downward, teeth quick on the soft skin of her inner thighs. She gasps, pulls his hair, and he utters something obscene.

“Lech,” she hisses, amusement in her voice. He whispers his agreement, tongue dragging over her wetness. She mewls and arches, pulling him insistently upward. Cool fingers wrap around him the moment he’s within reach, and he silently thanks the Gods that she’s in as much of a hurry as he is.

Her hips angle greedily toward him, and he wonders at the last time she’s been with a man. Surely Locke hasn’t touched her. And he suddenly remembers that she’s terribly young, younger than he by almost a decade, despite how old she acts.

But she wants it, he needs it, and he’s ready in almost no time. He enters her in one quick, smooth stroke and she moans low in her throat. The sound makes his heart skip, and his lips cover her own. They move in discordant waves, gasping each other’s names. Her fingers find his hair, loosing the ties one after the other, curtaining them both in gold. She tries to run her fingers through it, but hits a snag that makes him choke, jerking his head backward.

“Shit. Sorry.”

“Haven’t brushed-- since South Figaro--”

They laugh, breathless sounds, as they find some sort of rhythm together. She implores he go faster, and he obeys, face pressed against the curve of her neck.

She goes boneless when she climaxes, and he draws up to watch her face. He’s never seen her let go so completely, and it’s an image he hopes to never forget. The red moonlight shines on her lashes, and her eyes look like dancing flames for a moment.

“Celes--”

He doesn’t pull out when it overtakes him. No seed of any type has been able to take root in this world, so he isn’t terribly worried. Though the smallest part of him hopes that he’s wrong, that there will be more after them both, and they’ll be angry they drank that brandy.

She’s not concerned about it in the slightest, settling against the pillows as he lays beside her. Almost instinctively, he lets his head rest on her shoulder. Idly, she drags fingers through his hair, picking through the snags moreso out of compulsion than affection. It still comforts him, and he closes his eyes, letting his breath even out.

At length, she whispers, “When we find him, we can’t tell him about this.”

Edgar is silent for a few moments. Finally, he glances up at her. “...why not? I bet he’d think it hilarious.”

She stares at him, incredulous, her lips pursed. Then she snorts, chuckles, turns her head away and laughs for several minutes, a hand covering her face.

He laughs too. They laugh until tears are streaming down their cheeks, until exhaustion overtakes them. They sleep tangled in one another, and get back to work the next day.


End file.
